Angat Buhay: 20,131 families helped a year since NGO's founding

The non-governmental organization (NGO) founded and chaired by former Vice President Leni Robredo helped thousands of families across hundreds of communities in the country a year after the foundation’s founding.

In its first year anniversary, the Angat Buhay Foundation said it had helped 20,131 families and 15,636 individuals from 176 communities since it was established last July 1, 2022.

“Nagsisimula pa lang tayo (We are just getting started),” said Angat Buhay Executive Director Raffy Magno.

From July 2022 to June 2023, Angat Buhay said its flagship telemedicine program Bayanihan e-Konsulta assisted 7,706 unique patients with the help of 285 medical volunteers and at least a thousand non-medical volunteers.

The program, which was originally a COVID-19 response, was expanded to include mental health and other non-emergency medical issues.

At least 1,214 underweight and severely underweight children aged 6 to 59 months are also enrolled in the foundation’s nutrition program, according to Angat Buhay.

The foundation said the nutrition program was present in seven sites, including Himamaylan in Negros Occidental and Maslog in Eastern Samar.

Angat Buhay also established 137 learning hubs nationwide to help non-readers and numeracy-challenged learners.

Community learning hubs or CLH houses equipment and learning tools for students and has trained teaching volunteers.

In a year, at least 5,000 students had been enrolled in the program, the foundation said.

“Improving literacy and numeracy of Filipino students needs community-based involvement,” said Magno. “We enjoined the assistance of education experts and stakeholders in designing the modules, training, and evaluation system."

He added, "In our monitoring, all hubs improve learners’ literacy while 95% of students improved in their numeracy from pre-test to post-test.”

Within a year, Angat Buhay added that it also finished construction and turnover of dormitories in Infanta, Quezon and Camarines Norte and classrooms in Camarines Sur and Maasin, Iloilo.

More than 20,000 families affected by natural and man-made disasters from 93 displaced and affected communities were also given immediate relief, assistance, and rehabilitation initiatives by the NGO since it was established, it said.

Early this year, Angat Buhay said it also inked a deal to establish a disaster preparedness and response center to train volunteers for disaster response and serve as a headquarters for the foundation’s relief efforts.

In August last year, the foundation said Robredo launched the Angat Bayanihan —a volunteer network that aims to empower people’s organizations and help them give back to their respective communities.

Since then, Angat Bayanihan has mobilized 188 grassroots organizations and 13,705 individual volunteers.

The network has conducted community kitchens, medical missions, and relief distribution, among others, Angat Buhay said. — DVM, GMA Integrated News